E&P

Fairmount Santrol, one of the largest sand and resin-coated sand providers in the U.S. onshore, continues to see customers expand their use of proppants in each hydraulic fracturing stage, even with the downturn in the marketplace.

The combination of lower capital spending, shut-ins and even a shift to other plays won’t deter natural gas production from escalating in the Appalachian Basin this year, according to data compiled by NGI’s Shale Daily.

Williams Partners LP’s Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (Transco) has filed at FERC for its Dalton Expansion Project, which would help move Marcellus Shale gas to the Southeast to serve power generators and local distribution companies.

The Department of Interior (DOI) issued its long-awaited rule for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public and tribal lands on Friday. It requires operators to temporarily store produced water in aboveground tanks and disclose most of the chemicals they use to the FracFocus registry.

The Constitution Pipeline, which would carry Marcellus Shale natural gas to markets in the Northeast, has cleared another hurdle with a federal court ruling that it can access and build across land owned by seven property owners in Pennsylvania that opposed the project.

If the Baker Hughes Inc. rotary rig count for North America during the March 23-27 week drops by 113, the tally of active rigs will be half of what it was a year ago. The count for the week ending March 20 shows a decline of 136 rigs in North America at 1,209 active, and that’s down 983 from one year ago.

The decline in U.S. rigs on a year/year basis gained momentum, as evidenced by the most recent Baker Hughes Inc. rig count. The total U.S. rig count fell 41% year/year for the week ending March 20 versus 38% year/year in the previous week’s count.

The Transportation Board of Canada (TSB) said it is concerned about a plan by regulators to phase out the use of DOT-111 tank cars for transporting crude oil, suggesting that 2025 isn’t soon enough as it investigates a derailment and fire that occurred this month in Ontario.

A physician from northeast Pennsylvania who filed a federal lawsuit in 2012 challenging a state law that requires medical professionals to sign a confidentiality agreement to gain access to additives used in horizontal hydraulic fracturing has lost on appeal.